Cut My Losses?
I’ve received an offer from Squarespace as a Product Analyst but I’m still interviewing for Facebook. Thinking about ending my search as I don’t think I’m quite qualified for the FB role which is more Data Science. Also, I’ve been on a job search for months and a little weary. What do you think? I’m also open to interview tips. Not sure how to prepare for the technical interview. SB: My current job had terrible WLB and toxic managers which is why I’m leaving. I’m thinking more about career growth, wlb, and being able to learn in a non-toxic work environment. I can always go back an do FAANG companies later-on when I’m better prepared and less drained. (Offer 110k w/ 5kbonus and 48k RSU stock over 4yrs)
Why not still finish rounds at FB and see if you qualify? Do you think FB team/WLB would be worse?
I’ve been hearing that WLB is poor there. I don’t want to go from one company that was really bad on mental health to another one
Sqsp WLB has been pretty bad for me. Lots of chaos around project planning, really bad on-call rotation, crushing understaffing leads to over work on many teams. Management is a mixed bag. Most team managers are quite good, but it gets bad as you go up. Usually in the form of lack of support. Just sort of nodding along as if they hear you, then do nothing to help you. At the director level the politics are horrible and across director / staff eng / principal eng we have a lot of people who are deeply unqualified for the job. They seem to know they could not be employed with that seniority at other tech firms, so they use politics to cling at Squarespace. All the good new people who push hard to change the culture just quit because they can’t break through that layer of political cruft, and nobody seems to care.
Just try FB, even if you don’t get it the only thing you loose is a couple of hours
Are you sure that’s a real product analyst role - the pay looks close to a business analyst role with the title changed.
It is given the type of question they’ve asked me. On the other hand if it is more of business role than that’s a good thing. I’ve been considering leaving product all together for a business analyst role
I’m on the Data team and the culture here is subtly toxic. Also, unlimited vacation is going away, so I would recommend still shooting for FB if possible.
Interesting. Is there a timeline on when that’s going to happen and what is the protocol on tracking pto?
There’s no timeline yet. Which is one of the quirks of Squarespace culture - management decides on something and won’t communicate it out until the last possible minute. I’m not sure if they make impromptu/sudden decisions all the time, or if they do decide ahead of time but just choose to not disclose anything until the last minute. For example, we recently moved from quarterly planning/budgeting process to a semi-annual one. We were told of this *after* the quarterly process was well on its way and several teams had already decided on their plans. So, we had to redo it. Another example: we suddenly cancelled the next iteration of our flagship product without notice to the hundred or so engineers working on them, and many engineers had to move teams or leave the company as a result. To answer your original question, the official written policy is still unlimited (with no word on when that will change), but managers have been advised by HR that a reasonable amount of PTO is 20 days. So, we deny PTO requests for employees that are well above the limit (25 days or more). But there’s no consistent rule - if your manager is chill / favors you, you can get away with some extra PTO.
You be surprised what I’ve been offered as of lately from a plethora of companies. Partly I think it’s because I’m black but most company didn’t even want to offer me past 100k. I had to fight with them. I remember telling an Amex recruiter on a screening call I rescind my application because they wouldn’t offer more than 85k for a product analyst role.
I also work at squarespace and more familiar with the product analytics org (completely different from the data org - which may be toxic) but the product analytics org is a really tight knit culture and do a lot of great work. They seem to have a really healthy culture. I have friends at FB and it's a lot of pressure and terrible WLB. If you're prioritizing learning in a good environment - go with Squarespace.
I think it’s actually the exact opposite. In Sqsp the Data org is pretty solid, lots of good people, but gets no help from product teams. Data is a low priority afterthought. Product Analytics does not seem like a good culture, at least from the outside. UX research and various town hall slide decks seem more like story-telling without real data to back it up, like it’s meant to please executives by sounding good even if it doesn’t map to reality. The group may be tight knit and treat each other well like you say, but the heavy politics overshadowing data integrity comes off bad.
Lol who is right 😂
I work in product analytics, and I don’t like it here. The culture is kinda messed up - constantly and suddenly shifting priorities, killed/failed projects, and everyone trying to be a “yes person” to their manager / koolaid drinker in order to get promoted, etc. Seems like politics and favoritism is quite important here, more so than merit or technical skills.
Did you ended up accepting? tc looks pretty low for product
what was your offer
110k annually with 5k sign on and 48k in RSU over 4 years. Unlimited Vacay and health premiums paid for by the company
I don’t think the money for me is most important here I know I’d make way more at Facebook. However I’ve only been an analyst for 2 1/2 years and my current job had terrible WLB and toxic managers which is why I’m leaving. I’m thinking more about career growth, wlb, and being able to learn in a non-toxic work environment. I can always go back an do FAANG companies later-on when I’m better prepared and less drained.